Portions of this patent application contain materials that are subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document, or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
Included are two appendices to this patent application. Appendix A includes Expert Designer System Version 3.0, Virtual GIS, Application Programming Interface (API), Technical Specification, Version 1.0 (Feb. 24, 2000). Appendix B includes Expert Designer System Version 3.0, Virtual WMS, Application Programming Interface (API), Technical Specification, Version 0.2 (Jan. 4, 2000).
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to expert designer systems, and more particularly to interfaces for expert designer systems for use in the utility industry.
2. Description of the Related Art
Expert designer systems allow a user to design a real-world facility on the computer and to analyze the resulting computerized model of the facility to enhance or change the design. As described herein, a facility is made up of features, real-world components such as transformers and telephone poles. A feature may be a compound feature containing other features; for example, a switchbox contains and cutouts, each switch and cutout itself being a feature. A facility is designed for a particular work location, defined by physical boundaries of the land.
Expert designer systems automate developing, planning, modeling, and managing large facilities. In the utility industry, expert designer systems are used to manage, for example, gas distribution utility systems and electric utility distribution systems. Expert designer systems often access and make use of geographic information systems (GIS) information. Geographic information systems provide spatial information describing existing land and facilities to be incorporated into proposed designs. For example, an expert designer system may be used to design facilities in coordination with a variety of sources of geographic information, such as Automated Mapping and Facilities Management (AM/FM), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), and related information technologies for utilities, government agencies, and other organizations concerned with land records and facilities management. These geographic information sources will be referred to collectively herein as xe2x80x9cgeographic information systems,xe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cGISs.xe2x80x9d
It is known to provide an expert designer system for use with geographic information systems. One example of such a system is available from Cook-Hurlbert, Inc. under the trade designation CH-Expert Designer, v. 2.0. FIG. 1, labeled prior art, shows a block diagram of such an expert designer system for use with geographic information systems. The expert designer system of FIG. 1 includes an expert designer 102 and an expert designer database 108. Expert designer 102 is coupled to a GIS core 104. The GIS core 104 is coupled to a GIS database 106. In operation, a user accesses the expert designer system 102, which interacts with the GIS core 104 to obtain information from the GIS database 106. The expert designer 102 is designed specifically to interact with a particular GIS.
The expert designer 102 also integrates GIS with work management applications (not shown), offering a standard, cost-effective way to close the loop between design and mapping. Expert designer 102 allows GIS-based spatial information describing existing land and facilities to be incorporated into proposed designs.
The expert designer system of FIG. 1 includes a plurality of analysis tools including an electrical distribution system analysis tool and a gas analysis tool. The electrical distribution system analysis tool helps utilities reduce expensive losses in current systems and design maximum efficiencies into future installations. The gas analysis tool is used for natural gas and other hydraulic systems, giving engineers a complete tool kit for a wide range of network modeling tasks
The electrical distribution system analysis tool helps utilities ward off damaging voltage fluctuations in radial electric distribution systems. The software""s short-circuit analysis program offers information on what happens in an electric distribution system when a fault occurs. The product also offers graphic user interface independence. CH-Analysis leverages existing technology by using the front and back end of a current GIS, keeping information access under one umbrella. The electrical distribution system analysis tool includes VAR Optimization and Motor Starting, providing a more robust electric analysis package.
The gas analysis tool provides for load flow analysis, pipe sizing, valve coefficient calculation, pressure drop calculation and tail end pressure calculation. The gas analysis tool enhances the GIS to provide maximum benefits. The ability of these tools to link AM/FM/GIS software to analysis tools keeps all information accessible under one umbrella.
The CH-Expert Designer system also includes a quality analysis tool that allows utilities to easily verify connectivity, object placement, and object attribute values in a trail boundary network, or an entire GIS. The quality analysis tool allows users to verify that the data meet very high quality standards and to identify recurring problems.
The expert designer system provides user interfaces to link AM/FM/GIS software to analysis tools. The user interfaces allow users to employ their AM/FM/GISs to create and import analysis data, drive analysis programs and accumulate or reduce network variables.
The expert designer system described above provides excellent tools for modeling and designing facilities. However, the expert designer systems described above are designed to interact with a specific GIS and/or work management system. Most expert designer systems cannot be adapted to operate with more than one type of GIS or more than one type of work management system. What is needed is an expert designer system that operates independently of the type of GIS and the type of work management system.
In accordance with the present invention, an expert designer system for managing facility designs and work requests is presented. The expert designer system includes an expert designer system core to request information from database systems. The expert designer system also includes a virtual plug-in interface that enables the expert designer system to seamlessly integrate with multiple types of database systems, including geographic information systems and work management systems.
The virtual plug-in interface may include a virtual GIS plug-in interface which communicates with the expert designer system core and with a geographic information system. The virtual plug-in interface may include a virtual WMS plug-in interface which communicates with the expert designer system core and with a work management system. The expert designer system operates independently of the type of geographic information system and the type of work management system. The expert designer system includes a plurality of functions including design process management, offline design, configurable rule based feature placement and quality control, configurable rule based unit assignment, design editing tools, and structural, electrical and gas analysis.
The virtual GIS plug-in interface includes at least one of the following interfaces: a GIS modeling interface, a GIS database interface, a GIS workspace interface, a GIS events interface, a GIS topology interface, a GIS active view interface, and a GIS plot interface.